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Publications (98)
Obsidian artifacts are geochemically traceable to their geological sources of origin. The results of their analysis provide some of the most accurate testimonies of interaction, exchange and population movement. This article presents results of obsidian analyses of artifacts from twelve sites from the Middle Euphrates to the Arabian Gulf. We demons...
In this study, new approaches are developed for measuring and understanding the reactivity of East African amplifier lakes and the societies that occupied their margins to African monsoon related hydrological changes. Drawing on seven newly discovered archaeological sites in the Lower Awash valley, corresponding to the northern Abhe Lake basin, we...
The burials at the Neolithic cemetery Kadruka 23 in Sudan have yielded adornments and bone and lithic artefacts that occur as distinct stages of the chaîne opératoire . This article reports on a hitherto unrecognised funerary practice that highlights the importance of craftsmanship for Neolithic communities in life and beyond.
Human-induced environmental disturbances during the Holocene have provided support for the Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis (EAH), which proposes that with the advent of agro-pastoralism and associated deforestation, humans have modified CO2 and CH4 concentrations into the atmosphere. However, only limited evidence exists for human driven chemical al...
Investigation into the nexus of human-environmental behavior has seen increasing collaboration of archaeologists, historians, and paleo-scientists. However, many studies still lack interdisciplinarity and overlook incompatibilities in spatiotemporal scaling of environmental and societal data and their uncertainties. Here, we argue for a strengthene...
Understanding past and present hydrosystem feedbacks to global ocean–atmospheric interactions represents one of the main challenges to preventing droughts, extreme events, and related human catastrophes in the face of global warming, especially in arid and semiarid environments. In eastern Africa, the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) was identif...
Understanding past and present hydro-system feedbacks to global ocean-atmospheric interactions represents one of the main challenges to preventing droughts, extreme events and related human catastrophes in the face of global warming, especially in arid and semiarid environments. In eastern Africa, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) was identif...
Today, the Horn of Africa and northeastern Africa are connected geographically by the Nile and its tributaries, several of which originate in the Horn. This connectivity evolved over the course of the Pleistocene and despite its potentially central role in the dispersal of humans within and out of Africa, the interactions between human groups of th...
We report the first large-scale palaeoproteomics research on eastern and southern African zooarchaeological samples, thereby refining our understanding of early caprine (sheep and goat) pastoralism in Africa. Assessing caprine introductions is a complicated task because of their skeletal similarity to endemic wild bovid species and the sparse and f...
In tropical Africa, Late Pleistocene -Holocene climatic fluctuations heavily impacted the continental hydro-systems. The timing and magnitude of ‘African Humid Period’ hydrological dynamics (AHP; ~14.8 – ~5.5 ka BP) are not yet fully understood due to the extreme variability in African geomorphic patterns and the complex network of past air converg...
Since at least the 1970s, McGuire Gibson recognized the unique potential for archaeological research in highland Yemen to reveal key insights into Arabian prehistory. At that time, southwest Arabia was considered by most to be peripheral to cultural developments in better-known parts of the early ancient Near East. A series of research projects in...
Cet ouvrage est le fruit d’une longue et étroite collaboration entre une équipe française comprenant des spécialistes de nombreuses disciplines archéologiques et paléo-environnementales et un institut de recherche djiboutien dédié à la recherche archéologique et historique. Leur terrain d’étude se situe dans le bassin du Gobaad, des abords du lac A...
Climate conditions in Africa have varied substantially during the Late Quaternary with alternating humid and arid periods controlled mainly by the African monsoonal regime. However, the duration and termination of the last African Humid Period (14-6 ka BP) and its internal climatic variability are still debated. Using a laminated sequence from the...
Owing to research conducted by Jacques Reinold in the Kadruka concession during the 1980-90s, this area is renowned for including several Neolithic cemeteries which have revealed particularly rich graves. We will not deal with these cemeteries in this paper but rather with another type of site which, according to the literature, was erased from the...
Despite abundant Pleistocene calderas in the East African Rift and Afar, and the significance of regional tephra horizons for archaeological and paleoenvironmental dating, the entanglements of volcanoes and their eruptions with human behaviour and paleoecology have received little attention. Here, we focus on the intertwined human and eruptive hist...
Despite the scarcity of water resources, arid regions have been populated since prehistoric times. To survive, human populations established themselves in refugia, isolated spaces benefiting from sources of water, which they gradually transformed into artificial niches, or oases as we know them today. The XXXVIIIth Rencontres of Antibes aimed to be...
Introduction. Living in arid environments from prehistoric times to the present day: approaches to the study of refugia and oases
Variations hydro-climatiques en Afrique du Nord-Est depuis 32 000 ans : impact sur l’environnement et l’homme. In From refugia to oases: living in arid environments from prehistoric times to the present day
After losing control of the capital Sanaa to Yemen's northern Houthi movement, which is aligned with forces loyal to the former president ʿAli ʿAbd Allah Salih, current Yemeni President ʿAbd Rabbu Mansur Hadi turned to Saudi Arabia for help. In March 2015, Saudi Arabia and its coalition of nine states began a bombing campaign in Yemen, the poorest...
For a long time, Arabia was perceived as a marginal, peripheral and passive recipient region in prehistory, exploiting innovations from more important centres of development in its vicinity. This chapter aims to qualify this once dominant view. It shows Arabia rather as a largely independent sphere of cultural development, exploring the adaptive ev...
In the Near East, nomadic hunter-gatherer societies became sedentary farmers for the first time during the transition into the Neolithic. Sedentary life presented a risk of isolation for Neolithic groups. As fluid intergroup interactions are crucial for the sharing of information, resources and genes, Neolithic villages developed a network of conta...
L’étude des échanges d’obsidienne permet d’obtenir une meilleure connaissance des systèmes d’interaction entre les villages sédentaires au début du Néolithique au Proche-Orient. Le modèle d’échange d’obsidienne, down-the-line, a dominé pour expliquer la diffusion de l’obsidienne entre les villages néolithiques. Cependant, l’information disponible s...
Volcanological and Archaeological Program for Obsidian Research (VAPOR) - Afar
In this paper, we explore the conditions that led to the origins and development of the Near Eastern Neolithic using mathematical modelling of obsidian exchange. The analysis presented expands on previous research, which established that the down-the-line model could not explain long-distance obsidian distribution across the Near East during this p...
نيويورك تايمز: استهداف حضارة اليمن والتراث العالمي.. المملكة السعودية لاتختلف عن داعش.
Research conducted along the Bulbula River (Ziway–Shala basin, Main Ethiopian Rift) has yielded archaeological assemblages that document various phases of the Upper Pleistocene and the early Holocene. The oldest period documented is dated to ∼34–33,000 Cal BP (DW1), and the second is dated to the Pleistocene/Holocene transition, between 14,000 and...
The Shi’bat Dihya 1 site in western Yemen, dated by optically stimulated luminescence
to 55 ka, provides insight into the Middle Paleolithic peopling of
the Arabian Peninsula. The archaeological layer is interstratified within thick,
sandy silt floodplain deposits filling a piedmont basin. Luminescence dates, lack
of soil development, and gypsum pr...
The recovery at Shi’bat Dihya 1 (SD1) of a dense Middle Paleolithic human occupation dated to 55 ka BP
sheds new light on the role of the Arabian Peninsula at the time of the alleged expansion of modern
humans out of Africa. SD1 is part of a complex of Middle Paleolithic sites cut by the Wadi Surdud and
interstratified within an alluvial sedimentar...
The Arabian Peninsula is a key region for understanding climate change and human occupation history in a marginal environment. The Mundafan palaeolake is situated in southern Saudi Arabia, in the Rub' al-Khali (the 'Empty Quarter'), the world's largest sand desert. Here we report the first discoveries of Middle Palaeolithic and Neolithic archaeolog...
This paper examines an alternative approach to previously proposed models of prehistoric exchange such as the law of monotonic decrement or the down-the-line exchange model developed by Renfrew (Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 34: 319–331, 1968, Renfrew 1977) to explain the distribution of obsidian across the Near East during the Neolithic p...
As a result of a programme devoted to obsidian geochemical analyses for the Red Sea region (VAPOR), the register of analysed obsidian artefacts from Arabia has grown considerably in recent years. A percentage of these correspond to surveyed and exca-vated Neolithic contexts in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Oman. This growing database of site to source ma...
The Arabian Peninsula is a key region for understanding climate change and human occupation history in a marginal environment. The Mundafan palaeolake is situated in southern Saudi Arabia, in the Rub' al-Khali (the 'Empty Quarter'), the world's largest sand desert. Here we report the first discoveries of Middle Palaeolithic and Neolithic archaeolog...
Prehistory of the Central Main Ethiopian Rift (Ziway-Shala basin): Establishing the Late Stone Age sequence in Eastern Africa – Supported by the CFEE, ARCCH, MAEE, INRAP and the laboratory TRACES, this project, "Late Stone Age sequence in Ethiopia", is devoted to the collection of new data on the late prehistory of the Horn of Africa. To answer to...
The project "Late Stone Age sequence in Ethiopia" is devoted to the
collection of new data on the late prehistory of the Horn of Africa. The Ziway-Shala basin, in the Main Ethiopian Rift was selected for various reasons. Firstly, it is an ideal area to investigate whether and to what degree humans adapted to such lacustrine landscapes. In particula...
Soutenue par le CFEE, le ARCCH, le MAEE, l’INRAP et le laboratoire TRACES, la mission «Late Stone Age sequence in Ethiopia » est dediee a la reunion de nouvelles donnees sur la prehistoire recente de la Corne de l’Afrique. Afin de repondre a cet objectif, plusieurs campagnes de terrain se sont deroulees depuis 2007 dans la region des lacs Ziway, Ab...
Results of geochemical analyses of obsidian artefacts from the Neolithic site of Tell Labwe South, Lebanon
The Shi'bat Dihya 1 site in western Yemen, dated by optically stimulated luminescence to 55 ka, provides insight into the Middle Paleolithic peopling of the Arabian Peninsula. The archaeological layer is interstratified within thick, sandy silt floodplain deposits filling a piedmont basin. Luminescence dates, lack of soil development, and gypsum pr...
Resumen: Entre septiembre y octubre de 2011, un equipo libano-español realizó investigacio-nes arqueológicas en el yacimiento neolítico de Tell Labwe, situado a 30 km al norte de Baal-bek, en la Bekaa libanesa. El yacimiento fue sondeado por D. Kirkbride en 1966, documentan-do ocupaciones del Neolítico Precerámico B Reciente y de los inicios del Ne...
Until recently, the western Arabian Peninsula has had an enigmatic role in the large-scale prehistoric exchange networks of the greater ancient Near East. New geological and archaeological data recovered from obsidian-rich zones as well as sites in south-west Arabia and beyond, have begun to elucidate the region’s unprecedented position as a region...
Les fouilles et prospections systematiques menees entre 1999 et 2010 ont revele les contours d’un site unique dans le nord de la Mesopotamie. Khirbat al-Fakhar est un vaste etablissement de 300 ha, qui a ete occupe essentiellement au cours des periodes 1 et 2 du Chalcolithique recent (ca 4400-3800 cal. BC). Les prospections de surface menees de man...
The Red Sea and surrounding area formed through dynamic uplift and rifting of Afro-Arabia, and associated volcanism (both oceanic and continental in character). As a result, volcanic landforms and products are widespread and play a vital role in the natural and cultural landscapes of humans occupying the highlands and lowlands on both sides of the...
Arabia holds a particularly interesting geographic position for our knowledge of population dispersals and exchanges. It occupies
the southern end of a peninsula with access to two of the most heavily exploited maritime channels in antiquity as well as
to desert routes linking it to the Near East. In addition it is close to the African continent an...
The 2008 field season of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) Māryah Archaeological Project was dedicated to creating a detailed, three-dimensional map of the 40.4 ha highland site of Maṣnaʿat Māryah. This site was occupied from the Neolithic to the Himyarite period. In addition to precise mapping of the topography, buildings, streets,...
Fifth-millennium BC Obsidian Production and Consumption in Area TW, Tell Brak
X-ray fluorescence and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA–ICP–MS) analyses conducted on 40 obsidian samples from the Late Chalcolithic 2 levels at Tell Hamoukar and Tell Brak in north-east Syria have shown trends towards the exploitation of obsidian sources in the eastern Taurus. While the Bingöl region appears to provi...
Late prehistoric standing stones of the Tihamah coastal plain, Yemen: cumulative review
Holocene Obsidian Exchange in the Red Sea Region
Recent fieldwork conducted along the Tihâma coastal plain has illuminated a late prehistoric megalithic culture that extends the length of the Red Sea coast of Yemen. To date, seven sites comprising megalithic elements have been documented in the region. These imposing monuments dated from the late third to the early second millennium BC appear to...
Society for Arabian Studies Monographs No. 5 and BAR International Series 1661
Excavations at Tell Brak in 2006–7 explored two key episodes in Mesopotamian political and social history, developing early social complexity in the fifth to fourth millennia BC and the shift from territorial state to early empire in the second millennium BC. Late Chalcolithic complexity is represented in Area TW on the main mound and at the outlyi...
L'archéologie préventive et les opérations de sauvetage archéologique et de protection du patrimoine se sont amplifiées au cours des dernières décennies au Yémen. Les autorités locales ont rapidement pris conscience du danger que pouvait représenter les aménagements modernes du territoire sur la préservation des connaissances scientifiques du passé...
The rise and fall of the rival South Arabian kingdoms (900 BC – AD 600) has been widely documented through excavation and epigraphic data. This period witnessed the growth of complex societies, each with its pantheon, a written language, and monumental architecture. These kingdoms prospered along the desert fringe of Yemen as a result of organized...
Preventive archaeology, rescue archaeological operations and actions for heritage protection have been increased in Yemen these last decades. Local authorities have quickly realized the danger of modern town and country planning on the preservation of the scientific knowledge of the past. Otherwise, lootings done against the current law on the prot...
Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies
Grâce aux nombreuses recherches et fouilles entreprises, la période sudarabique, qui s’étend du IXe siècle av. J.-C. au IVe siècle ap. J.-C., est la mieux documentée de l’archéologie yéménite. Toutefois, nous savons encore peu de choses sur la Préhistoire dans cette région du monde, tout particulièrement en ce qui concerne sa chronologie. Il n’exis...
Depuis quelques décennies, la connaissance des époques préhistoriques au Yémen s’étoffe progressivement grâce à l’acquisition de nouvelles données par les scientifiques. Cette période de l’histoire de l’humanité est cependant encore très mal connue dans cette région du monde.
Afin d’améliorer nos connaissances de la Préhistoire régionale, deux appr...
Grâce aux nombreuses recherches et fouilles entreprises, la periode sudarabique, qui s’etend du IXe siecle av. J.-C. au IVe siecle ap. J.-C., est la mieux documentee de l’archeologie yemenite. Toutefois, nous savons encore peu de choses sur la Prehistoire dans cette region du monde, tout particulierement en ce qui concerne sa chronologie. Il n’exis...
